Meetings and friends

Rise and shine! This morning I had lots more energy, so started early fixing the last things with Hypoxia, then sent it to the print shop. Always nice :-)
Met my old friend Krister for breakfast in Gamla Stan and then had a lunch meeting at Gondolen. If you haven't been there you should try it, their lunches are not much more expensive than others in Stockholm and service, food and views are all very good. I had some lovely wild boar.

In the afternoon I met up with former Kosovo colleagues Anders and Pettsson for beer and Raggmunk at Soldaten Svejk, my home away from home in Stockholm. We continued to Akkurat to check out their Belgian beers (as I am writing about Belgian beer bars we had to do thorough research) and here Micke, another old friend, met up. Ingrid and Pettsson had never tried geuze, so of course we ordered a beautiful oude geuze from Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen.

Somehow Micke and I ended up at Man in the Moon in the end, which was good for although the place as such is not very special they had a surprisingly healthy beer list, and also lots of vintage beer to reasonable prices. In other words an excellent opportunity to taste a 10 year old Chimay Bleue. Very interesting, with round sweet notes, almost a bit like sherry.

Meetings and friends in Stockholm

Brian, me and Fredde

Now and then, I go to Stockholm in Sweden to meet my customers and pitch new ideas and coming stories. Today was one of those days. I had productive and positive meetings with three customers, then headed for my inofficial office in Stockholm, Soldaten Svejk, where I had the great pleasure to meet several friends I haven't seen for a long time.

First to arrive was Fredde, once my paraglider instructor and now an avid contributor to Hypoxia (the paragliding magazine I produce). Then came Susann, a Swedish diplomat who I got to know in Jerusalem. Next in was Brad, an American aid worker and also a fun friend from Jerusalem. He is now studying in Uppsala. Lotta came as well, yet another Jerusalem friend working for SIDA, and this evening "on leave" from her cute little baby.
The Jerusalem gang grew with Åsa, former UN and TIPG staff member, and Lotta, freelance journalist soon moving to New York.

We had a beautiful evening full of laughter, good food and Czech beer :-)

Nostalgic in Cairo

Hello, back again. I am afraid I have been extremely busy lately, and neglected my private blog somewhat. Also, my travel blog for MSN takes a lot of time.

As usual, I have been doing a bit of traveling. Last week, I visited the big travel fair TUR in Gothenburg, Sweden. It was great to be back in the city where I once studied, and also fun to meet old and new friends in the travel business, and editors from the major Swedish travel magazines. Managed to sell a few nice stories that will keep me busy this summer. About what? Can’t say yet, but it is going to be fun.

I also met two old friends from University over a beer at the friendly Polish restaurant Kraków. It’s funny how little we change over the years – we agreed on that we were pretty much the same persons as when we studied together, more than 15 years ago.

Friday, I took the train to Stockholm and stayed over at Lotta and Per. Lotta used to work in Jerusalem, so that is were we met. Both of them are really nice and generous persons, and Lotta and her always cheery mood is dearly missed in Jerusalem.
Anna, another Swedish friend in Jerusalem, was also visiting Stockholm and staying at Lotta’s place, so we went out for dinner the four of us. I really enjoy keeping up contact with good friends like this, I find it a pleasure but also important. When you live an international life on the move, it is far too easy to loose contact with people, even if they are important for you.

Saturday saw me attending the Swedish Paragliding Association's annual meeting. I am the editor of their magazine Hypoxia (which I very much enjoy producing) but I have not been able to meet the board before. So this was a most fortunate occasion. The meeting was held in conjunction with a big adventure fair, where most of the Swedish diving industry exhibited. So I could say hello to a few old colleagues and friends from my diving years while there.

In the evening, I went to my favored Stockholm drinking venue, the Czech pub/restaurant Soldaten Svejk. Their beer is poured with utmost care and love, and of the very best quality. The food is recommendable as well, if you like the heavy cuisine of central Europe (which I do).
My old University friend (and nowadays customer – he asked me to write the travel blog for MSN) and regular Svejk-company showed up as well, nowadays a somewhat rare event since he lives on an island in the Mediterranean right now. Later on, Maxson, another friend from the University of Journalism, joined us for a glass or two. Fun!

I called it a day rather early, which was wise, considering I had to go up at four the next morning to go to the airport. Sunday was a looong travel day for me. First a flight from Stockholm to Vienna. Then another flight to Tel Aviv.
In Tel Aviv, the Israelis managed to call in 13 staff members just to arrange for my transfer between flights (something that is normally done without any staff at all other airports in the world). It took them an hour to figure out that I was not going to blow up any planes this time either. I mean, they check me in and out every time they see me at the airport outside Tel Aviv, which is very often. Paranoia is a strong understatement when it comes to them.
Anyway, in the end, they let me enter the airports waiting lounge, where I sat for more than three hours, before it was time to board my flight to Cairo. Landing there late in the evening, I took a taxi to the fancy Cairo Marriott Hotel on an island in the Nile.

So here I am, in Cairo again. There is a nostalgic feeling in the air when I walk the narrow and crowded alleys of the souk – I visited Cairo three times in the 90’s, but have not been back since. Most of it is exactly the same. Maybe the buildings are slightly crumbling somewhat more, maybe the traffic is a notch worse. But the same kind of wrinkly old seen-it-all men sit at the corner cafés, smoking their shishas (water pipes) and sipping their tea.
I like it.